In EnglishLast week we went to dig up a big rhubarb from our friends garden.. or actually my DH did the digging and I stood beside the hole making appreciative sounds.That rhubarb had grown ther for 13 years and grown huge roots that tried to go all the way to China. The total weight of the washed and cut roots were 12 kilos and also three big pieces of crown to plant again for future harvest. I was pondering how long I should grow these rhubarbs before digging them up again for roots, possibly three years, but maybe five would be better. We have to give them lot of compost and water and not to harvest leaves at least for that three years to give the rhubarbs enough strength to grow long roots again.

When I cut the roots, I noticed that where the skin of the root had broken, the color changed to reddish, kind of like the color I got last year when I dyed with rhubarb roots and used ammonia afterbath. The inside of the root stayed orange yellow.

The color of the very young roots was more lemon yellow compared to the strong orange yellow of the old roots, but while I went to get my camera to photograph this difference, also the chopped younger roots had turned orange yellow! Propably some kind of oxidation happened, but could there be a way to use this observation in dyeing? And another question, would I get more browner/redder color from the skins or the flesh near the skins of roots compared to the middle of the roots?

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WHY USE NATURAL DYES

"We can keep the knowledge of their use alive, as well as regaining for ourselves a vital contact with the natural world. The ability to correctly identify the plants needed, to understand their growth stages sufficiently well to be able to obtain the greatest dye, offer both challenge and pleasure."

We sell our yarns, mitten kits, knitted things and my husband's photographs at the market Kauppatori in Helsinki. From the beginning of October until mid May my husband will be at the market only on Saturdays, unless the weather is very bad.